Seattle’s officially lame-duck Mayor Greg Nickels and the District of Columbia’s delegate-for-life Eleanor Holmes-Norton have something in common that has already gotten one in a lot of trouble and the other may be asking for some.
Both seem to believe that constitutional rights can be suspended. Nickels lost the gun owner vote in Seattle and has now lost his job, coming in third in the primary election last week, because he’s spent the last 14 months waging a quiet war on gun rights and Washington State’s model preemption statute. He had threatened to ban all firearms, including those legally carried by citizens licensed to pack concealed handguns, not to mention the growing cadre of citizens who carry openly, from city property by executive order. Advised that he lacked the authority, he promised to do it, anyway.
His jets apparently cooled a bit, Nickels still has instituted questionable lease requirements for anyone holding an event on city property: They must ban firearms from these events. He’s making event organizers his proxy gun ban enforcers, a requirement they have no authority to enforce.
A key thing that's been bubbling under the surface is what's going on with President Obama and guns. There is a real question mark not only for extremists but for gun rights advocates in the mainstream. - Brian Levin, Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, California State University
Norton wants to create a “gun free zone” around President Barack Obama and members of his cabinet in the wake of demonstrations around the country at Obama events where protesters openly carried firearms. She was quoted by a Fox news affiliate stating, “Certainly you don’t want to have people around the president openly carrying weapons and saying, ‘I can do this and you can do nothing about it’.”
Why not? As I stated here several days ago, “No American politician, including the president, should have any apprehension about sitting down with a legally-armed citizen, or attending a public meeting attended by citizens who are carrying firearms.”
Just the other day, the Washington Post quoted Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University at San Bernardino, who observed, “A key thing that's been bubbling under the surface is what's going on with President Obama and guns. There is a real question mark not only for extremists but for gun rights advocates in the mainstream.”
Finally! After waiting so many years, someone in academia has acknowledged that there are gun rights advocates “in the mainstream.” So, why wouldn’t the president – any president for that matter – feel comfortable sitting down in a room filled with these mainstream Americans, guns and all, maybe sharing a cold one to talk about pressing issues of the day?
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters several days ago that “There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally. Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality.”
The ever-paranoid Paul Helmke, chief alarmist of the Brady Campaign, fired back, “What Gibbs said is wrong. Individuals carrying loaded weapons at these events require constant attention from police and Secret Service officers. It’s crazy to bring a gun to these events. It endangers everybody.”
There are laws that govern firearms that are done state or locally. Those laws don't change when the president comes to your state or locality.” - White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs
Actually what Gibbs said was correct, and Helmke knows it. Gibbs did it in an unusually matter-of-fact way that lacked his typical double-speak around the issues. I was sincerely impressed.
The “danger” that frightens Helmke is that people might actually get used to the notion that American citizens can walk around with firearms, openly or concealed. Perish the thought! One does not suspend the constitution simply because the president comes to town, or because some mayor doesn’t care for firearms.
Recall four years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans; Mayor Ray Nagin and then-police Superintendent Eddie Compass decided that “Nobody would have guns, only the police.” Police and National Guard units were dispatched to seize firearms from anybody who had them, often at gunpoint. It took an historic lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association to stop it, and for the record, nobody else – including the Justice Department – stepped up to that plate.
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Comments
Yet, to my knowledge, in spite of an injuction and a court order to return the unlawfully confiscated weapons in New Orleans, none have been returned.
Responsible gun owners do not drink and carry. If you're drinking, have a designated marksman!
I think they are being returned. But they were not cared for during or after confiscation so nearly 100% of them are degraded beyond rehabilitation. This should be the subject of another lawsuit IMHO. New Orleans should be forced to purchase a new firearm every person who had one confiscated.
RE: NEW ORLEANS... They were finally "ordered" to return them to the people - but New ORLEANS never advertised this fact, nor HAD to; hence very few know about it. For the few that DO - like ReturningArms said: Because they were deliberately stored in buckets containing sea water, the salt & corrosion has hence turned them to pure garbage... and the slick MAyor has laughed... laughed at the System, laughed at the NRA, laughed at his own residents in verbal statements to the Press, indicating how STUPID "his" Taxpayers are, but how HARD he's working for them (yes, in the same breath!)... and the FU^#$@^ absolutely IGNORANT Black residents nod and say "life is good - again". and the MAYOR 'WILL' get voted BACK in, in 2010 - BET on it! Yes people - as Forrest Gump would say: STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES!!
The propensity for promoting gun control is directly proportional to the evil scum treason intended by the proposer. An American politician respects the rights of the people is not scared of gun rights. An Anti-American slime traitor murder pig with truly EVIL intentions, is all "we need to ban guns". It is --while contrary to typical conscience-free criminals-- guilt making them show who they truly are, because they KNOW that what they have planned will get them righteously perfortated beyond recognition except by DNA testing (if someone was stupid enough to care after hearing "that used to be a gun control promoter"....
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